


in awe of superficial things

by meliorism



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, SO MUCH FLUFF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 16:45:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11085735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meliorism/pseuds/meliorism
Summary: in which ryder defeats kadara's architect, celebrates, and reyes decides he ought to get new bed sheets.“Hell of a day,” Ryder confesses as soon as he crosses the threshold to Reyes’ little pied-à-terre, right after he kisses Reyes.





	in awe of superficial things

**Author's Note:**

> — i'm in internship report + thesis hell so i can only do short fics to tide me over until i can really do something bigger.  
> — written with my custom m!ryder in mind who is a vanguard casual/emotional dummy but the times it comes up are so few it doesn't really matter.  
> — wye oak's 'civilian' is my reyes jam, so that's where the title comes from.

“Hell of a day,” Ryder confesses as soon as he crosses the threshold to Reyes’ little _pied-à-terre_ , right after he kisses Reyes.

It’s a spartan thing, really. Just a two-room apartment in the slums filled with nothing memorable save for the rumpled futon tucked into a corner and the golden-pink-purple light that makes Kadara—well, Kadara.

Technically, it’s a great day. There’s a husk of an Architect in orbit and there’s Ryder shucking off pieces of his armor, then the protective suit. But Reyes can’t let himself get hung up on technicalities when Ryder’s sprawled on the futon, stretching himself like a cat on top of the pillows he’s smuggled from the Tempest and Reyes from the Nexus, Aya, anywhere really; on top of the sheets—the once white, sulfur-yellowed sheets, what a shame. Reyes really, _really_ ought to get new ones.

Of course Ryder wants to celebrate. He sits up and curls his fingers around the back of Reyes’ knee. _Hell of a day_ , he’d said, but he’s riding on the high. It’s in how he thrums his fingers against the bed, how he can’t stay quite still, the grin on his face despite the bruises all over his body. Reyes knows that thrill. But it’s also in how he ever so slowly drifts into a paradoxical lethargy.

“I can’t believe it took an Architect to get me alone with you and a bed for more than ten minutes,” Ryder says as he watches Reyes shuck off his clothes. “We _have_ to fuck properly. Seize the opportunity.”

Reyes’ belt, yellowed shirt, boots, jeans, and, also, unfortunately, sulfur-yellowed boxer briefs hit the floor far quicker than he’d admit to.

“Well, yes,” Reyes concedes. There is something to be said about the domesticity—the realness of it—of sharing a bed. It isn’t the first time for them, but there’s still a sense of novelty in there. “But here I thought I’d gotten something right with that last storage room.” He smirks at the memory of it.

“Reyes, _please_.” Ryder, as it seems, isn’t above reaching for the back of Reyes’ knee again and pulling him down.

The futon _fwomps_ as he flops down on top of Ryder, using his weight and scrambling to get his hands on Ryder’s wrists to keep him down against the sheets. Ryder sticks his tongue out at him, hair bleached white splayed like a halo and Reyes can’t decide whether he wants to hold him close, breathe him in, or fuck him into the mattress so he can feel Ryder’s pulse racing where they’re pressed up hot and sticky.

Still, Ryder communicated his need quite clearly.

Reyes bows down to press his lips at Ryder’s jaw, tracing his ear. He feels Ryder’s legs open to accommodate him.

From there they fuck, properly like Ryder wants, unhurried and easy like they can rarely afford. Ryder brings a hand to the back of Reyes’ neck and keeps him there, tonguing his pulse, tracing his collarbone; keeping him there like there was anywhere else Reyes wanted to be. It’s good; Ryder sings against his ear—moans, sighs, gasps, low enough that maybe Reyes needs to be this close to hear them. They grind against each other enough to build up a sheen of sweat before it becomes unbearable, and Ryder gently swats Reyes’ hand away from the pliant thighs he kneads to take them both in hand and bring them off. He kisses Reyes’ temple and he comes like that—tense-relax all the while biting his lip so he doesn’t make too much noise, even here, even now, in this microcosms of their own. Ryder strokes him once, twice, to near oversensitiveness before he stops with the loose circle of his fingers; ever the gentleman, oh so selfless. Reyes, though, he isn’t selfless but he still puts his hand over Ryder’s to bring him off—or maybe he’s still selfish and it’s for his benefit, to drink in the broken way Ryder’s tongue stutters around his name, somewhere between the _e_ and the _y_ and a moan.

After they’ve seized the opportunity, they’re pressed up together for a while in the afterglow. It’s hot, it’s sticky, uncomfortably so, but the smell of sex covers them like a blanket to keep reality at bay. Reyes almost dozes off.

That is, until Ryder nudges him with his knee, saying, “I’m thirsty.”

“Really, sweetling,” comes the expected reply, “I thought we just took care of that.”

He feels Ryder stifle up a chuckle but he hears a groan.

“Come on, babe, you can’t let me die here. Get off.” Reyes snorts. “SAM, help me out here.”

SAM intervenes with that monotonic yet slightly chastising voice of theirs. “Mr. Vidal, the Pathfinder is experiencing slight dehydration due to sustained battle and sexual activity. I recommend drinking water.”

They disentangle with great effort and the little time it takes Reyes to fill a glass with tap water (the wonder of it, of _Ryder_ healing an entire planet, never ceases to amaze him) and take a rag that he also brings under the tap is time enough for him to turn and find Ryder unashamedly staring at him. He makes a show of the last steps toward the futon until Ryder takes snatches the cup out of his hands and drinks it all at once.

After the fact, he grins up at Reyes. “Thank you. Thank you _very_ much. Can you get me a knife? And that bag over there.” He gestures vaguely towards his armor.

Reyes quirks an eyebrow at him, gently tossing him the rag to clean himself, but does as he’s told. “You’re awfully spoiled today,” he teases.

“I did just beat an Architect. In your planet. You might want to thank me.”

As it turns out, Ryder has conveniently hidden away a nondescript bag with his armor. Elmohk. It’s an elmohk and while it’s never been much to Reyes’ taste in the few times Keema offered it to him, he can’t help but wonder where Ryder’s got it. Aya’s awfully stingy with it. When he inspects Ryder with a narrowed expression, he raises his hands in defeat and smiles.

“I’m hungry,” Ryder confesses. Of course he is. Using his biotics like he does will do that to a person.

“Not what I’m wondering.” Reyes reaches for his discarded armor and retrieves a small switchblade before he returns to the futon. He hands Ryder the goods.

“We stopped at Havarl before coming here,” Ryder begins explaining while he cuts the peel off the fruit, placing the strips on his stomach. “You know.” Reyes knows. Ryder’s very good at keeping him updated, complete with pictures and everything. It almost makes up for the blind spot the Charlatan has outside of Kadara; though not as much as he’d like.

(Ryder sits up for a moment and gestures to the pillows. Reyes chuckles, but still fluffs them up. He does so enjoy pampering his favorite Pathfinder.)

“Jaal’s mother sent me a basket. Elmohk, paripo, a couple quilloa too.” Ryder cuts a small strip of the red fruit and eats it with a satisfied groan. “She knows I love it. She’s great.”

He knows Ryder’s infatuation with the overly sweet. Of course elmohk fits the bill perfectly.

“I see,” says Reyes, mildly disconnected with a plan half-formed in his head.

Instead, he watches Ryder’s hands as he skillfully cuts a strip and eats it, and then another. The thing with elmohk is the juice, red and sweet as the rest of the fruit; it stains everything. It ruins the sheets more than they already are—they really need retirement. Reyes, he thinks, should be worried about how he finds the sight of it running down Ryder’s fingers and hands down to the wrist enchanting. It must hurt where it runs over the scabs on his knuckles, a permanent fixture on his hands.

“Want some?” Ryder asks, holding out a strip to Reyes.

Reyes settles on his side facing Ryder, taking his elbow in hand to veer the fruit towards the Pathfinder’s mouth. “I’ll take a rain check. Too sweet.”

“Yeah?”

Reyes hums affirmatively, and like that they spend a few moments in silence; Ryder eating and Reyes watching him drumming his fingers on the top of Ryder’s thigh. He could go back to the datapad he deserted close to the door, read up on the reports he’s been procrastinating since the Tempest landed on Kadara, but he figures it can wait. It’s all routine either way.

“You know,” Ryder starts another breadcrumb of getting-to-know you disguised as pillow talk, “I always liked fruit. More like was made to. My mom—bless her—always made me all kinds of fruit salad growing up. ‘Sweetheart, you need to learn to make snacks like these with biotics like that,’ she’d say. Then she moved on to other things. I was a hungry little beast. She was so proud when I told her I was the only one back in Arcturus who knew how to cook.”

Reyes raps his knuckles against Ryder’s skin. “Say the word and I can fix up a _sangría_ , yes? Bet the angara haven’t thought about doing that yet.”

“Fuck, yes,” says Ryder enthusiastically, between bites as he finishes the fruit. “Miss the simple things.”

“That overly dramatic music when you know shit’s about to start in the _telenovelas_. Now there’s something I didn’t think I’d miss.”

“I think you’re dramatic enough without that.” Reyes snorts. “Something of your mother in you?”

“Her guilty pleasure while fixing up dinner,” he says.

Reyes’, too, at that point in life.

Reyes almost jumps out of his skin at the realization of things he’s putting on the table, little by little; but his skin is thick and it hides the unproportionate panic at the admission with trained ease. Still there, though smaller after all this time. If Ryder notices it, he doesn’t show it. But he’s distracted with setting the peels and pit on the small table at the side of the futon so Reyes trusts his chances.

Ryder doesn’t probe.

On their own accord, Reyes’ fingers collect the elmohk juice where it pools in the small dips and creases of Ryder’s stomach. His skin raises in goosebumps it their wake. The taste is still sweet, almost cloyingly so, but there’s also salt and another taste that must come from Ryder that makes it bearable.

Without the fruit there to contend for Ryder’s attention, Reyes parts Ryder’s legs and takes up position there. He bends down to kiss his abdomen, chasing the taste of the fruit before he looks up to find Ryder looking at him like a wonder, like a treasure. He means to run his tongue over his skin, but Ryder stops him with a hand at his temple, thumb smoothing over the small crows-feet that come unbidden when he smiles.

His lips are painted red by the fruit.

“Come on, Ryder,” Reyes says, “unless you’re satisfied?”

Ryder squirms a bit and pats the side of Reyes’ face. “Nah. Not really. I did say we need to seize the opportunity, fuck properly.”

This time, his hands don’t stop him when Reyes kisses along the trail of dark hairs to the base of Ryder’s cock. It raises to attention under his touch, one hand loosely wrapped around it.

He does back off, even if to just ask Ryder “What do you want?”

“Your mouth, your fingers—”

“Yeah?” Reyes murmurs, not really a question but something to fill the space between them instead the swelling in his chest, to quench this surge that urges him to give in and fall and fall and fall.

Instead, he reaches for the bedside drawer and the lube.

“Yeah,” says Ryder, and his voice is low and rough like he _knows_. Reyes works the lube over his fingers until it’s warm, taking Ryder’s building erection into his mouth while they reach under his balls, over soft, warm skin to trace his hole. He knows Ryder feels it when Reyes presses his finger against it, not quite enough to breach, not yet, because he lets out a soft sigh. Reyes watches enraptured how his eyelids flutter. Because of the hand on his cock, the fingers at his hole, the unsaid hovering over them—and Ryder _knows_ , because he knows these things and takes them in stride like they’re easy to. “Yeah, _Reyes.”_

It’s a blessing. And Reyes uses his mouth and earns being called _shena_ , no matter his distaste for the name. His fingers find all the little spots that make Ryder curl his toes against Reyes’ back with a groan, a gasp, his name when he comes into Reyes’ throat.

He’s dazed out of it. Of course he is, and the thought makes Reyes feel proud. Doesn’t make him any less eager to come too, his cock a ruddy brown in Ryder’s grip, guided Reyes’ hand. It only takes a while until Ryder’s recovered his faculties and takes the lead to bring Reyes over the edge and make him spill warm over his hand, his knuckles, his stomach. Ryder waits patiently until Reyes’ breathing is regulated back to a slow, deep pace that comes from deep within his belly. His hair is a messy mop over his forehead, but so is Reyes’.

“Good?” Ryder asks when Reyes slips to his side; keeps his arm around Ryder anyway. He looks wrecked in the absolutely best way.

“Better than,” swears Reyes with a voice hoarser than usual.

They should move, get cleaned, but as if tethered to Reyes by some sort of gravitational pull, Ryder curls up against him. It’s a welcome warmth and Reyes allows it with his arm slung around Ryder’s waist, his lips against his temple. He feels Ryder yawn into his neck more than he hears it and like that they doze off together.

When he wakes up Ryder’s still fast asleep and only stirs mildly at the absence of warmth left in Reyes’ wake, who walks up to his datapad to tap a message, too groggy to bother with politeness.

_Keema, I need you to arrange someone who can get me angaran fruits and new bed sheets. —R_

It’s still day, if the burning sunlight that contours Ryder and the rumpled sheets in strips is any indicator. He still goes back to the futon and settles himself in a similar position to before; he’s earned this.  


Even in his sleep, Ryder moves to accommodate him. He mumbles something, but it doesn’t mean as much as the hand he brings to Reyes’ hip to squeeze.


End file.
